


Ask Again Later

by sunflowerseedsandscience



Series: Early On [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s01e01 Pilot, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 10:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8098099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerseedsandscience/pseuds/sunflowerseedsandscience
Summary: "We could at least dry out somewhere until a more reasonable hour," says Scully.  "How about we grab another room at the motel, just one- not like that, Mulder!"  She rolls his eyes at his suggestive leer.  He knows he's pushing the envelope, but he can't help it- she's just so straight-laced.  It's only taken her giggling once for him to be addicted to the sound of it, and if he can get her to laugh again, it'll make his night.





	

Mulder looks down, bemused, at the five feet (barely) of soaking wet, giggling redhead standing in front of him. She hasn't specifically called him crazy yet, not out loud, even though she's thinking it, he knows she is... but at the same time, she's buying his bizarre theory, somehow, even though she doesn't want to. She's standing in a small-town cemetery, in the rain, beside two open graves, laughing her head off because she thinks there's a chance a comatose boy is leaving his bed by night to exhume the bodies of his high school classmates. He doesn't know her well enough to be sure, but he thinks it's a safe bet that this is the strangest twenty-four hours she's ever passed in her life.

"Come on," he says, leading her away through the mud and rain-soaked grass. "Let's get out of here." She follows by his side.

"Where are we going?"

"We're going to pay a visit to Billy Miles." Scully arches an eyebrow up at him as they approach the car.

"Mulder, it's three in the morning and we're both soaking wet," she says. "No way are they going to let us in to see him, not at this hour, and not looking like this."

"Well, what do you suggest?" Mulder counters. "I don't know about you, but any change of clothes I had went up in flames along with our motel rooms, Scully. I couldn't neaten up if I wanted to."

"We could at least dry out somewhere until a more reasonable hour," says Scully. "How about we grab another room at the motel, just one- not like that, Mulder!" She rolls his eyes at his suggestive leer. He knows he's pushing the envelope, but he can't help it- she's just so straight-laced. It's only taken her giggling once for him to be addicted to the sound of it, and if he can get her to laugh again, it'll make his night. "Just for a few hours. I don't think a town this small is going to have any all-night diners we can camp out in." They reach the car, and Mulder digs out the keys.

"The rain's gotta let up eventually," he says. "We can probably just sit in the car for awhile." Scully rolls her eyes.

"I'm freezing, Mulder. I'd like to not be _in_ my clothes while they're drying out, if possible," she says. Mulder really, truly can't keep himself from waggling his eyebrows at her; does she not realize how wide open she's leaving herself? Scully catches his expression. "Mulder." She swipes her hand along the wet roof of the car, flicking rainwater into his face. "Not." Another flick. "Like." Flick. " _That._ " She swipes her entire arm over the car, getting water right in his eyes. He flinches.

"Hey!"

"Oh, relax," says Scully. "You're already wet." Mulder grabs her by her arm, reaches onto the roof of the car and, using his wider arm span to its full advantage, sweeps an absolute deluge of water right into Scully's face. She sputters and tries to jerk away, but she's laughing, and so is he. 

He doesn't even realize he's still holding her arm until she stops trying to pull it out of his grasp, and by then, it's too late: he's already leaned down and kissed her.

She responds with a sharp gasp, and he fully expects her to pull away... but a moment later, the arm he's not clutching is tight around his neck as she surges against him, returning his kiss with breathtaking enthusiasm. He releases her arm and takes her waist, pulling her even closer. She's so much smaller than him, and she's not even wearing heels right now, just flat hiking boots, and the angle is killing his neck, so he lifts her up by the waist and sets her down on the hood of the car, never breaking the kiss. She moans softly and opens her legs, allowing him to step between them. She locks her ankles behind his thighs, and they kiss, and kiss, and kiss themselves breathless, the rain cascading down their faces, the chill of the night lost in the heat of their bodies pressing together. 

Somewhere, in the very back of Mulder's mind, he knows this is a terrible idea, that it's stupid and dangerous... not to mention wrong. He overheard Scully's phone conversation last night. He knows full well she's seeing someone. That, coupled with how frightened she was when she came to his room, not to mention the excitement of the night's discoveries... she doesn't _seem_ like the sort to let her emotions get the better of her, but he thinks he's gotten a good enough read on her to know that if an emotional overreaction is what this is, she'll probably regret it later.

Scully seems to be thinking along the same lines, because suddenly she pulls back. She puts a hand on his chest, gently but firmly pushing him away (not far, though, because her lower half seems to disagree with her upper half and her legs are still locked around his hips). "Mulder," she says, her voice shaky, "I can't. This is... I mean...." Her eyes, their impossible blue still visible in the dark of night, stray to his lips, and this time, she's the one who kisses him, and even though he's even more sure than he was a minute ago that it's a bad idea, he's helplessly swept along. They're close but not close enough, layers of sodden denim and Gore-Tex keeping more distance between him than he'd like... but it's close enough for her to feel what she's doing to him, and this time, when she pulls away, she releases her legs, as well, jumping off the hood of the car and stepping back.

"I'm sorry," says Mulder, looking down. "I shouldn't have-"

"No, don't be sorry," she says. "It's just that... I'm with someone right now, and I can't-"

"I know," says Mulder sheepishly. "I heard you last night, on the phone. I didn't mean to eavesdrop. I'm sorry." She doesn't look angry, but he feels like he should apologize anyway. "I don't know what came over me." She ducks her head and grins.

"Neither do I," she admits. "I don't usually-" The rest of her sentence is lost in a brilliant flash of lightning and a massive clap of thunder that makes them both jump.

"Listen," says Mulder, "let's grab that motel room, like you said." She cocks a skeptical eyebrow at him, and the urge to kiss her again is suddenly almost overwhelming. He foresees that eyebrow becoming a real weakness for him, and resolves to make her look at him like this as often as possible. "Just to talk, and dry out, I promise!" She bites her lower lip- oh god, what is she doing to him- and finally, she nods in acquiescence, and they climb into the car.

 

\-----------

 

The nighttime clerk at the motel remembers them as the agents whose rooms went up in flames earlier, so there's no need to flash their badges in order to secure a single room, sans luggage, for a few hours. He's even kind enough to provide a few extra towels.

Mulder hangs his wet clothing up in the shower, leaving enough room on the curtain rod for Scully's, and wraps a hotel towel around his hips, then opens the door and steps out into the bedroom. Scully brushes past him, one towel wrapped around her waist and another under her chest, determinedly not looking at him as she hangs up her own clothing in the space he's left behind. Mulder tries not to look, he really does, but his mind is full of the image of her from last night, the smooth skin of her narrow waist inches from his face as she'd dropped her robe. Now, with the electricity back on, he can see the freckles scattered across her shoulders, the milky skin of her shapely legs, her smooth, toned arms.... He lets out his breath in a long shudder. She turns to him, catching him watching her, and does a visual inspection of her own, her eyes lingering on his chest before traveling back up to meet his. The tension between them crackles like a live wire, and he swears he can almost hear the hum of electricity as she reaches out and runs one tentative hand over the muscles of his stomach. She's in his arms again before either of them really know what's going on, and the kiss this time is so full of promise that it takes his breath away. They are alone here, not out in the open in a graveyard, and no one is watching, no one will know if they....

But he'll know, and she'll know, and when Scully steps back again, he doesn't try to keep her there.

"Maybe we should keep some distance," she says, retreating to the other side of the bed and sitting in a chair by the window. Mulder nods and stays where he is, though every fiber of his being is screaming at him to follow her, to rip off the stupid towels and take her right here on the sagging bed with its ugly, scratchy bedspread. She's feeling it too, he can read it in her crossed arms, her quick breathing, her lip between her teeth... he clenches his eyes shut. Jesus, that lip. She's got to stop that. "Mulder, are you okay?"

"Yeah," he says, his jaw tight. "Just, uh... just trying to clear my head a little."

"I'm sorry," she says. "Maybe this was a bad idea and we should have just sat in the car like you suggested." He laughs.

"In even closer quarters than this? Probably not." He sighs. "I'm the one who should be sorry, Scully. I completely took advantage of you out there." She frowns.

"How do you figure that?"

"You had a fight with your boyfriend last night, you had the life scared out of you by the bumps on your back, we narrowly escaped burning alive in our motel rooms, and we ended up in a graveyard in the rain in the middle of the night. It was one hell of an emotional roller coaster, and then I went and kissed you while your defenses were down. It was completely wrong of me."

"Is that what you think?" She shakes her head, looking more than a little annoyed. "Mulder, I'm not nearly fragile enough that I'd behave this way over an argument and some mosquito bites. I kissed you back because I wanted to." Her admission leaves him speechless. He searches her face for any sign that she's lying, but there is none. She meets his gaze unflinchingly, and a feeling of warmth rushes over him from head to toe.

It's cooled quite suddenly, however, by a niggling little voice in the back of his mind. Things like this do not happen to him anymore. Smart and beautiful FBI agents don't admit to wanting to kiss him. Maybe before, back when he was the BSU's golden boy profiler, but not now, not since his fall from grace, not since his obsession with the X-Files turned him into a pariah. Scully was sent to him, assigned by Blevins, ostensibly to spy on him.

Is that all she's here to do?

He opens his mouth, about to ask her if this is all part of her assignment... but he stops himself at the last second. This is not the sort of accusation that a fledgling partnership can ever recover from. If it's not the truth, she will never forgive him for insinuating it, and rightfully so. And, he reminds himself, he's the one who kissed her, not the other way around. In fact, she's pushed him away, both times. Not a particularly effective tactic, if she's trying to seduce him. Unless she's doing it that way, to make it seem less obvious? Was it all an act, the fight on the phone, her fear over the mosquito bites, to make herself seem vulnerable, to draw him in?

Not likely. If Blevins had wanted to distract him that way, this is not the sort of woman he'd send. Mulder's preferences- the physical ones, anyway- are known well enough that it's more likely his new partner would be a leggy brunette, not a tiny redhead with any and all trace of her feminine figure hidden under a ridiculously bad blazer. Mulder's had a long line of girlfriends and one-night-stands at the Bureau, not to mention at the Academy before that, and nearly every single one fit a profile.

But that's physically. Mulder's pretty sure his biggest weakness, when it comes to the opposite sex, is not nearly as well known. It's common enough for men to be fixated on women's breasts, their hair, or their legs... but none of those things are what really, truly brings Mulder to his knees.

Fox Mulder is a sucker for an intelligent woman. And in that regard, Dana Scully, the woman who re-wrote Einstein as an undergrad, is a perfect fit for him. He could swear he was half in love with her already, just from reading her thesis.

And so, he re-frames the question he's about to ask, shelving his suspicions- at least for the time being. "You really wanted to kiss me?" Scully looks down and smiles, blushing fiercely. He's both glad and dismayed the lights are on, because the sight of that red flush spreading across her chest is doing unspeakable things to him.

"Yeah, I did." She looks up, but her eyes are sad now. "But I can't, Mulder. Ethan and I... despite what you heard on the phone last night, we're not over yet. At the very least, even if we are, _he_ doesn't know it yet. And I... I'm not the sort of person who can ignore that, no matter how much I might want to." She crosses her arms more tightly around herself. "Can you respect that?"

"I can, Scully," he says. And then, even though it kills him to say it: "Do you... would you be more comfortable being reassigned? When we get back to DC?" Her eyes widen.

"No, that's not what I'm saying at all!" she insists. "This case... it's like nothing I've ever seen before. It's ridiculous and fantastical and improbable... but it's also fascinating. How can I walk away from that?" Mulder laughs.

"You make it sound so sexy," he says. "I assure you, it's not, not most of the time."

"But it's interesting," she says. "It's a challenge... and if there's one thing I love, it's being challenged."

"I'll keep that in mind," he says, and she laughs. "So... what you're saying, if I'm reading you correctly... is to ask you again, some other time?" She thinks this over, then, finally, smiles at him.

"That's exactly what I'm saying, Mulder." She nods. "Ask me again sometime."


End file.
